They Might Be Giants (Tormenta/Knoxville preview)

Teams have played two or three games this season (Sorry, most teams have. Omaha, meanwhile, still has only played one game and has their game scheduled for tomorrow postponed as we'll see below) and so far, there's everyone else, and there is Knoxville.

One Knox has two wins on the season with victories against Charlotte and preseason favorites Lexington on their record. They've scored two goals in each game while only surrendering one in their two games and have looked like the team to beat. 

Now, it's wild to make any grand proclamations about teams this early in the season. Knoxville has played two games. It's 9% of their season. No one needs to get carried away and crown them just yet. Having said that, they've looked very good in both of their matches and with a regular season that's only 22 games long, getting wins early is never a bad thing. 

Knoxville has four different scorers so far. Angelo Kelly-Rosales is one of those who has scored and far and away leads the team with 10 chances created on the season. For comparison, Nick Akoto and Ajmeer Spengler lead Tormenta with five chances created so far.

Defensively, Knoxville has been stingy, only allowing seven shots on target through their two games. Goalkeeper Sean Lewis is one of the best in League One and has stopped six of the seven shots he's faced. Ford Parker, meanwhile, has seen 21 shots sent his way but has saved 17 of them through three games. 

Tormenta, meanwhile, capitalized on their chances this past weekend against Richmond. Conor Doyle's strike from 25 yards out opened the scoring early. Niall Watson gets credit for the second goal, but Ajmeer Spengler set it up with is dribbling through most of the Richmond defense before playing a perfect through ball to Watson. And Mason Tunbridge finished off the scoring with his first professional goal to seal the win.

Watson has two goals to lead the team (and league, for that matter) in scoring as he's been able to make the most of his opportunities. 

Defensively, Tormenta was able to withstand a barrage of shots from the Kickers. Ford Parker made several excellent saves to thwart the Richmond offense. I'm no soccer expert (as you've no doubt figured out by now), but while it is obviously good that Parker is making so many saves, it also seems bad that he's having to make so many saves to begin with. The website Footystats.com had Richmond with an expected goals scored of 2.04 in that match. 

Against Forward Madison the week before, Madison had an XG of 2.03 but again, Tormenta held them to one goal. Clearly what actually happens is what matters, not what is expected to happen, but that stat exists for a reason. If Tormenta is relying on outperforming the expected stats all year, that seems to me like you're flirting with disaster but I would be happy to have someone tell me that I'm misunderstanding that.

Kickoff is set for 4 p.m. in Knoxville. It'll air on ESPN+. (Wow, that's an old saying. It will actually steam on ESPN+)

Now that you've read this... go read this excellent breakdown of the game from John Morrissey who breaks this down in much greater detail than I can. 

Ideally I'll have a Friday post every week getting us ready for that weekend's match and it seems like a good place to add a weekly roundup of news and other items. As I've said, this whole blog thing is a work in progress so we'll see how it goes.

Tormenta News:

Jackson Khoury made his international debut for Lebanon against Australia earlier this week. 

Ian Cameron was named coach of the week while Conor Doyle and Ajmeer Spengler were named to USL1 Team of the Week. Ford Parker and Niall Watson were on the bench for Team of the Week honors.

Tormenta goalkeeper Drew Romig had a birthday. 

Tormenta's W-League team announced their first two signings for the upcoming season. Smith Cathey and Jenna Moran will be in Statesboro for the summer along with 2023 captain Jhenesis Ellerbe (I'll have a bigger roster breakdown of the W-League teams as their season draws near.)

League One News:

Chattanooga is having to postpone two of their games due to upgrades to the playing surface at their stadium. 

Teams can now add two additional Academy players to their roster for home games. No word on if that will be expanded to road games if teams wanted to do that. 

Richmond is making some upgrades to their stadium that do not appear to be causing any postponements to games. 

Fuego has a cool video behind the scenes of their first few weeks of the season.

Other Stuff:

Fans in the Statesboro Area are invited to The Clubhouse for the official watch party. Kickoff is at 4 p.m. eastern with the party staring at 3:30. (I mean, I guess everyone is invited, you don't have to be in the Statesboro area. I don't mean to limit you and if you want to drive down from Atlanta that's cool and all, but you can just as easily drive to Knoxville for the game.)

My kid's high school team upset Greenbrier on Tuesday night, handing them their first region loss in two years. (I can justify this being here because one of his assistant coaches works in Tormenta's front office.)

For those celebrating, have a wonderful Easter season.